Crunch time! Zimbabweans must now decide which reforms to demand, GPA or NERA

The people of Zimbabwe have been present with two possible options out of the present political and economic nightmare the nation now finds itself in. The last two and half years the nation has debated the merits and demerits of the two options and now it is crunch time – we must now decide. The two proposed solutions are:

 - Either, to go back and demand the implementation of the democratic reforms proposed and agreed in the 2008 GPA

 - Or forget the GPA reforms and demand the implementation of the electoral law reforms as proposed by MDC-T in their recent National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA). Some 15 opposition parties including Mai Mujuru's People First, have signalled their support of NERA according to MDC-T.

Why should we go back to the 2008 GPA reforms:
 - The GPA reforms were proposed to ensure the restoration of the people's freedoms and democratic rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections and the right to life itself following the barbarism of Zimbabwe's 2008 elections. The parties in the GNU were tasked to implement the GPA reforms to ensure there barbarism of the 2008 in which millions were harassed, beaten and/or raped and over 500 were murdered would not be repeated ever again.

 - Zimbabweans across the board and outside observers alike agreed at the time that, if fully implemented, the GPA reforms would end the Zanu PF dictatorship and deliver freedom and democracy in Zimbabwe.  

 - Not one of the GPA reforms was implemented after five years of the GNU; neither the two MDC factions nor President Mugabe and his Zanu PF friends have ever denied the fact that no reform was ever implemented. SADC, as the guarantor of the GPA, was very disappointed that not even one reform was implemented and they blamed MDC leaders accusing them of "enjoying themselves whilst in the GNU and forgetting why they were there".

 - However, the very fact that none of the parties in the GPA can deny that no reforms were implemented during the GNU also means none of them can justify why we should not revisit the reforms since the set objectives were never accomplished.

 - Whilst one appreciates that getting President Mugabe and Zanu PF to go back to the GPA reforms is not going to be easy now that the GPA has expired this is equally true even if we go for option b) above. The overriding concern here is not picking reforms President Mugabe would find easy to implement but rather to stop the country having yet another rigged elections, a repeat of 2013 or, worse still, of 2008.

 - President Mugabe is under great pressure from the worsening in fighting within his own party Zanu PF on the one hand and on the other the worsening economic meltdown. The situation is unsustainable and the tyrant should be made to realize that the only way to end this crisis in to implement the democratic reforms and hold fresh free, fair and credible elections. There is no other way out.

Why the electoral reforms are a false choice:

 - The electoral reforms proposed by Tsvangirai are not seeking in any way to implement the GPA reforms that MDC should have implemented during the GNU. NERA accepts that the GPA reforms were not implemented and will never be implemented because for President Mugabe and Zanu PF to do so would be to "commit political suicide" as Vince Musewe acknowledged.

 - What NERA is seeking to accomplish is to make the most of the bad job. Having failed to achieve ZEC independence as demanded by the GPA reforms, for example, NERA wants the task of complying the voters roll taken away from the Registrar General's Office and handed over to ZEC as stipulated in the new constitution. If the independence of ZEC is not assured then Zanu PF can agree to this and then transfer its operatives in Registrar General's Office to ZEC. If you know you are playing with a loaded deck of cards you demand the deck to be replace and not that it should reshuffled!

 - Last year MDC-T promised that by December 2015 they will have dragged Zanu PF "kicking and screaming" to the electoral law reform table. Many said to that was MDC-T grandstanding and posturing and time has proven them right.

 - Undaunted by the past record of failures and wild-goose chases – the worst case being the failure to get even one GPA reform implemented in five years of the GNU -  MDC-T are still promoting NERA and claim they will get SADC support in this. "We are going to sensitive the region and Africa that credible elections are the only way to resolve Zimbabwe's crisis," vowed Mwonzora.
    
"Already, we have had a positive response from the president of Botswana who is also current chair of SADC."

Of all the SADC leaders, President Ian Khama of Botswana was one of those who pushed hard for the GPA reforms to be implemented during the GNU and therefore was disappointed that no reforms were implemented. He will never endorse compromise reforms that will never deliver free, fair and credible elections.

"Kana wadya gudo, chidya gono!" goes a Shona proverb. (If you are forced to eat a baboon, then eat the healthy big male and not some thin and sickly one!) Now that the GPA has expired President Mugabe and Zanu PF believe they do not need to implement any reforms now, they weathered the SADC pressure during the GNU. To force the regime to accept reforms now will therefore take the concerted and united effort on part of all Zimbabweans, SADC, etc. If there is going to be a united front on reforms then that has to be over reforms that will deliver free, fair and credible elections – the healthy big male baboon - and not some wishy-washy NERA reforms!